Mitigating Board Complexity with System-Level Engineering

There’s no doubt about it: Developing circuit boards is getting more complex.

Demand for faster data speeds is increasing. Boards are becoming more dense. Requirements call for the latest protocols and devices. Packaging constraints call for multi-board and flex-board systems. The surest sign of escalating board complexity lies in the fact that few are designed by a single engineer.

Today, most require the coordination of many engineers instead. And overall, this trend shows no sign of abating. Board complexity looks like it will only get worse. Obviously, all this complexity carries risk, both in terms of time and money. So how do you mitigate it? One answer might surprise you: system-level engineering.

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Cadence Design Systems recently integrated more of its Sigrity capabilities into the front end of its PCB design tools. During DesignCon, Chris Banton of EMA Design Automation spoke with me about how this drive for “model-less analysis” benefits the PCB designer who can now access signal and power integrity, DFM, and electrical rule checking functionality early in the design process and have fewer issues later.

At DesignCon, I met with our old friend Todd Westerhoff, a veteran signal integrity engineer. Todd joined Mentor, a Siemens Business, since we last spoke. We discussed his new job responsibilities, his drive to get more designers and engineers to use SI tools, and the increasing value of cost-reduced design techniques versus overdesigning PCBs.

At AltiumLive, I met Carl Schattke, CID+, a lead PCB designer with an American automaker. Carl and TTM’s Julie Ellis taught a packed class on good stackup practices complete with plenty of slides showing examples of all kinds of stackups. After class, Carl explained why the stackup is often the root of manufacturing problems downstream, and why today’s discrete component shortages are likely to be around for quite some time.

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Mitigating Board Complexity with System-Level Engineering

There’s no doubt about it: Developing circuit boards is getting more complex.

Demand for faster data speeds is increasing. Boards are becoming more dense. Requirements call for the latest protocols and devices. Packaging constraints call for multi-board and flex-board systems. The surest sign of escalating board complexity lies in the fact that few are designed by a single engineer.

Today, most require the coordination of many engineers instead. And overall, this trend shows no sign of abating. Board complexity looks like it will only get worse. Obviously, all this complexity carries risk, both in terms of time and money. So how do you mitigate it? One answer might surprise you: system-level engineering.

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